And the Winner Is...

Welcome to trillions.

I'm Joel Webber and I'm Eric Balchunis.

Awards season Eric at ETF dot Com. I didn't know that this exists, but every year there are ETF industry awards.

Yeah.

ETF dot Com was once known as Index Universe. They're kind of the ogs of being on top of the ETF industry in my opinion, and ETF dot Com has ETF Awards and yours truly is a judge.

I think I've been a judge for two or three years.

So it's kind of fun getting to vote that. The nominees are all logical to me. Every now and then one squeezes in that's like the indie feel good hit of the year. Then there's some of the more standard ones. It's really a lot like the Oscars, to be honest with you, and usually there's a there's a surprise or two, there's a Lifetime Achievement Award, Best New ETF, Best Ticker.

It's really fun.

You know, most people when they hear that, they're like, come on, there's an ETF Awards show, and of course there is, yeah, but this industry just it just feels right for this industry for me, so I get it and I think it's fun.

So we're gonna go through just a handful, a couple of handfuls of the recipients, the award winners and joining us from ETF dot com. We've got Kristin Myers who's the editor in chief, and Lucy Rooster, the financi reporter best time on Trillions. And the winner is Kristin Lucy Welcome to Trillions.

Thanks so much for having us, Thank you for having us.

Okay, how many years has this been happening?

So the awards have been happening ten years running, but this is about the second or third awards, I would say, really since we kind of had this huge brand relaunch of ETF dot com.

Okay, and there's there's a ton of categories, seventeen different categories. We're going to go over ten or so. I think how many finalists were there?

Nominee nominees, So we got about seventeen hundred nominees if I remember it definitely was over fourteen hundred.

Is it just people nominating themselves?

Though you can nominate yourself, you can only nominate yourself once, So we do actually strip out the multiple nominations that do inevitably come up. And then we as the editorial team, whittled that down to eighty five finalists essentially, and then we kicked it over to Eric and six other judges who took that eighty five and brought that list down to seventeen.

I had to have been pretty desperate for Eric to get invited back.

I just voted for my friends. Yeah, I really try to be objective.

And Bloomberg, by the way, was nominated for a couple of these categories. Well just one one. You abstained from that category. Yeah, and we got shut out. So giving away.

Shutouts a little rough. I don't know how many of the six Voueah, we didn't get that. We didn't get that aword.

Okay, all right, that was the disclaimer. Okay, we're going to start with best New Active ETF and we're going to go kind of like reverse to end with ETF of the Year. So best New Active ETF. I don't is that like the best Supporting actress or something?

Maybe Eric, I'd say, so, Yeah, this is a this is a This is a big one because active is the big deal. The whole industry is just loving that active is getting popular. To me, this is one of the hotter categories, and who won.

That, Lucy, Yeah, absolutely, the Best New Active ETF went to the AB Disruptors ETF ticker f w D And yeah, as we all know, AI was a huge story of the past year, so it made sense they won. But it was a competitive category. I mean, Panagram was nominated there, uh ETF ticker cls o Z the Fidelity Disruptive Technology ETF fd t X. Yeah, but the winner was the AB Disruptor.

And you all don't know how close this was.

We don't, and I should because people ask me this question and have asked this question quite a lot. We obviously know why we took the list down from more than one thousand down to eighty five, but when it comes to the final five noms in any of the categories, because we have about five in every single category, we actually don't know how the judges are actually voting. What makes one ETF or one fund really kind of clinch

I try to look for something that's either novel pushes the envelope in something like this because active is sort of a newer space, or if something punches a little above its weight, maybe it's more organic the flows rather than say just because they have a lot of distribution. So I tend to not vote for like the comic book movies. If you will, you know, I'm not going to vote for the Marvels or whatever for Best Picture.

What did you think of this class of nominee in this one?

I can't remember who I voted for, but I will say this ab disruptors and fidelity disruptives. I mean, Kathy Wood has to be loving this because these are really she really blazed that path, and she used to work at Alion Spurnstein. In fact, they wouldn't launch an ETF back when she was there, so she left to start her own shop. They finally launched one, I guess better late than ever, So I think she gets a win there, and then to me, the most interesting one probably is

Lowvall.

I'm just not sure how much advisors understand them, but that is a hot little area there, so I like that some like that gets in there. I like that it's not all of the big companies, which the other companies are real big. Panagram is like total indie.

And Panagram actually pops up a couple of times, and the in the final NOAMS list. Actually, when it came to this year's awards, they did pretty well for an indie shop. They've made a really strong showing this year.

Little Miss Sunshine hmm okay, well let's see if they uh Napoleon Diner few somewhere else.

Best New US Equity ETF. Who is the winner in this category? Lucy?

Yeah, So I announced this category and the Fidelity Disruptive Technology ETF take our FDTX one and that was actually converted from a mutual fund in twenty twenty three, so it was technically a new ETF.

And that's kind of an interesting little asterisk there. I guess like it technically is a new ETF. Yes, and we've been talking about conversions forever.

Yeah, it's more like it was born on third base.

Yeah. Yeah, And you know it was interesting. I was up there announcing it and and there were some booze in the audience when we announced the winner of this ETF, which was definitely interesting.

So a couple theories there. I know John Davey was there.

Maybe it was him because the story was on this list John's New Yorker, you know, I could see him sort of maybe getting there, and Rex and Roundhill DMO was in that category two. But there's a story kind of circulating that Fibility is charging a new like a surcharge for ETF isshuers, sort of like a fee to be on its platform, and it has kind of irritated some of.

The smaller issuers.

So it's pretty possible that that was them expressing their displeasure. But I will say drama, I think, yeah, reward show.

They need that.

You know, Ricky Gervais was so good for the Golden Globes. He made stuff really kind of and then Will Smith punch slapping Chris Rock. You need these moments, I think at an award show. So I'm sure fatility didn't like it, but I think it's good for you to that level. But sure, yeah, drama.

This is the I don't know the only amount of kind of drama you could expect from ETF, dot commo wars. Well, like the Oscar.

You're going to there was you have to lower your whole entire standards for the financial industry.

It is pretty juicy.

Yeah, okay, okay, next one, Best New smart Beta or factor e t F Kristin who won this one?

Yeah, So the winner of this category was Avantis all Equity Markets Value et F. That's ticker A v g V. Obviously, we were chatting about this a little bit earlier, and I mean, if we go back to just even that last category, there has been this push now into those active ETFs, right, and so this the best new smart Beta is essentially all about that kind of push because it's cheap way to get actively managed ETFs.

Yeah, and Evantis Joel is sort of run by a guy who left DFA and it's kind of factory active obviously, but this is to me, Evantis is the tip of the spear of cheap Active. Active Now, like Avantis, most of their active ETFs are below twenty basis points. So if you're an advisor, you know they love cheap stuff, right, They're willing to buy Active, but they want it sort

Was that like best animation maybe yeah, yeah, best the animated film? Okay, this one, I feel.

Like like slightly above best editor.

I'm curious how you're going to react to this next next one? Uh, Christian, let's stay with you. Best New E S G E t F. Who won this?

All right? Best New E S G E t F. That award winner went to the X trackers M S C I U S A Climate Action Equity E t F. That ticker is U S c a really interesting category for this one. And Lucy, I know you have a couple of thoughts. She was talking about E s G, E t FS recently. Everyone loves to hate E s G. Well, they love to hate ESG period, and they really love to hate ESG.

Yeah, Eric kicked it off.

Yeah, he was critical people are growing.

Well, it's interesting because this one, you know, has accumulated one point five billion in assets over a time period, where over all the category has been seeing that outflows closures.

Eric, I hate.

Because this was long and I Shares launched one climate action for this European institution who is currently in two who had seated and I shares in a X trackers one that was called ESG for whatever reason, and they're both sensitive about this.

They didn't like ESG.

So these two firms came out with climate action and the firm simply moved all their money out of the ESG ones into the climate action one. So my interpretation was that ESG, the term, is getting a lot of baggage and people would rather be in something they didn't have that in the name to avoid all the controversy. And so in a way this should win because it is indicative of what we call the rebranding of ESG.

Yeah, so this is what I love about the ETF dot Com awards. Just I mean to kind of take a broader look for a really quick second, because so many of these awards, even though it was in the year twenty twenty four, we were looking at the performance and everything like that for the year twenty twenty three. So these awards are in a way a look back,

Interesting if you look at these nominees, I mean barely they don't even have ESG in the name of the funds, And I think it goes to what you're saying is, you know, I think a lot of firms are kind of putting the ESG label out's pasture because they're aware of the baggage that's coming along with it, but you know, it's how much are the actual strategies going to transform orre They kind of just dropping the label.

It is interesting that none of the nominees in the SG had ESG in the name. Yeah, none of them and yourself, I may put that in a note That is really interesting and kind of proves our take, which was we thought and ESG is going to live on. I think it's going to be one two percent of assets. They're going to try all these different kinds of names. Smart Beta went through this when smart Beta was popular.

Actual electricity market. Another I think I might have voted for that one and vets as well, and vets another one.

Heat TOUCHSDOWNE Climate TRANSITIONINGTF. I'm gonna use that as a way to transition us into the new ETF Ticker of the year. Heat shows up not only in Best New ESG, it also was nominated for Best ETF Ticker of the Year. Kristen, did it win?

No? Oh, it did not win. That one went to the theme cybersecurity ETF ticker spam spam. Oh, I know.

So good.

That is good.

We just had one of the nominees on the music Guy Q a couple of weeks ago. Bucks is on there. That's a bond ETF spam for cybersecurity. That that one, obviously, And it's interesting, Joel, I've always told you my favorite ticker is hack, which is a cybersecurity ETF cybersecurity made perfect. It's custom made for cool tickers. I still like Hack better than spam by a little, but spam's good.

I will say that my head, my head went to spam, not the type in your inbox, but spam in the can.

I also, it's funny you say that. I also thought of that, and I've never eaten spam, so I don't know why. That's where my mind.

Does it repel you at all? Because spam isn't exactly like something you want.

To eat, you know, the thing you want to click on.

I heard it's delicious though a lot of has a following. So I have a question if you guys had to make a ticker name, Oh what would the ticker?

We asked the questions on the show.

Well, I know yours easy? His ideas have everything in one shot?

Call it easy? What does it hold everything?

Yeah? I like that, Yeah, it may I have its downsides.

Well, the problem is advisors don't want to do that. They want to hold multiple things that looks like they're doing something.

Yeah. Easy, But I just think it's too good to just just make it easy for folks. I have kind of a new addendum after like what seven years of the the podcast, and this is very New York centric where in the I think the phone book inspired a certain type of business name, which was like a B C and then like mechanic right, Like.

You know, it's really sad. This is going over Lucy's head because she's so young.

She do you even know what a phone book is? You ever handled one?

I'm aware of the concept, but I haven't.

I haven't personally why would you do?

Yeah wait, why would you that instead of just using your iPhone? I don't understand the concept, but.

Aware of the concepts, I feel terrible.

So so the only thing better than ABC.

Have you ever been in a picture and gone through a phone book?

What's a what's a phone phone?

You know, the payphones phone books.

Sitting there and they were chained. You know, it's crazy. They were chained to New York, chained inside.

I mean those things people take pictures.

Now, I just feel you ever made a collect call from a phone booth? That's a whole other level.

Of yeah, yeah, yeah, no comment, Uh, definitely definitely when yeah okay, So anyways, uh yeah, that does that answer your question?

Yeah?

It does kind of multiple different ways. Okay, So this is little grum roll. I feel like this is we're getting to the second half. We're going to do etf Issuer of the Year, which I feel like this is like a big one best Studio I guess something like that. That's not even an award.

I'd put up maybe best screenplay or writer.

Okay, uh Lucy the winner is.

Yeah, so for eat issue or the winner was Dimensional Fund Advisors, which you know, they're known for active management, which is, like we mentioned earlier, really been a huge theme of the past year, and you know they launched in twenty twenty, so they've really picked up steam. They have thirty eight funds and one hundred billion in assets,

So I actually really love this because it's a little bit like the Cinderella Story. I don't know if I would call dfa truly like you know, a sort of and when I say Cinderella story, I mean kind of like you know, March Madness type of Cinderella story. But

This was the biggest group in the world. I agree, a little underdogish.

If if ARC kind of said that active can succeed, it's almost like DFA came and just like built a whole highway because a DFA has shown again that if you lower your fees enough, you can really sell almost anything. Because remember smart Beta was around for a while, but it wasn't until it got cheap that it started to see success. Same with the SG In fact, Vanguard their index funds charged sixty basis points when they first started.

That implies that there was a winner that you didn't agree with somewhere. Oh no comment, you.

Just got im. It's going to be trying to be nice.

Yeah, okay, all right, Lucy, sticking with you. The best thematic ETF of the year.

The spraut Uranium Minors ETF ticker you are and and yeah, I mean they're one of the only funds. Yeah, they're one of the only funds offering exposure to uranium. And you know, the performance was, you know, double the return of the S and P five.

Uranium absolutely took off in twenty twenty three. I think it was.

Oh did it?

It feels like it's been taking off multiple times.

Yeah, you guys weren't there yet. Let me take you back to rape before COVID.

This is January twenty twenty, right when I still thought it wasn't going to be a big deal.

Remember that.

Anyway, I'm on stage at ETF dot com conference. You guys weren't there yet, and the analysts have to present their best new ETF idea.

I presented you R and M.

It had just come off a huge bear market, and I called it green investing for realists, because if you want to get to net zero, you got to have nuclear I was like, this is also obvious Bill Gates to say in the same thing, I didn't win, But since then, my my ticker, you R and M crushed everybody.

So this is your comebacks. Yeah, this is really you. You should have been on taking the tak the for this.

I should have I should have been part of the team that went up.

So does the microphone Does that mean you voted like Kanye Taylor sweat, Yeah, yeah, I deserve this.

It feels like he's voting for this to keep his finger on the scale about how smart I was like years ago.

Well, I think it is a good story.

The other thing I like about this, we just did a study of like, if you look at all the ETFs that have closed a lot of times, their performance gets better after they close than in their life. You know why, because they launched the peak of these trends. Your n M stuck out to me because it launched after like a ten year bear market, and I was like, I never saw that, and I'll like I kind of

And R in M I think also was novel in that department.

I mean their performance. I'm looking right now their one year performance over seventy one percent. Yeah, seventy two percent.

Well, you've got a fixed amount of this and to be AIQ is big because AIQ is doing real AI and tech ETF.

That's the best selling AI ETF right now. That's the hottest topic. So R and M had tough competition in here.

Okay, best new US Fixed income ETF, Christian, you want to take that one?

All right, let's go down this list. Okay, so best new US fixed income ETF that went to the Vanguard Short Term Tax Exempt ETF VTEs is the ticker. This is a tough category. I think fixed income anything right now.

Kind of the year of fixed income.

Oh man, it's investors in fixed income have really been getting battered prost lately. I think it's.

Also fixing fixed income is editing a ton.

Of interest in this category. Yeah, so why this one?

The competition wasn't that fierce. All these companies are interesting calamos bond blocks, but the ETFs picked I could see why Vanguard won. Plus, you know, Vanguard's like Daniel da Lewis. If he's nominated for like seven caps, he's got to win something. He's just too good, right, Vanguard always takes in the most flows. They should win something or it's a little weird, right, So I think you have to

So makes sense. Vanguard got a little bone here.

Okay, So I think we're gonna have a pause right before we do the big the big part.

Was there musical entertainment at the show, like you know how they do with the oscars.

I mean, other than me singing yeah, I did not say, I did not say.

And impromptu performance by Kristen I did.

Actually, you know, it's really interesting. I did actually have a bunch of issuers give me one line best freestyle rap. I know you're so you seem surprised. Yeah, and I got some really good ones.

Really yeah, So wait they sent you a line of rap.

No, I literally just doorstep they were on the spot. On the spot, I said, I want you to freestyle your best one line rap about finance or investing or about your ETF. And I have to tell you, well, I will tell you the best raps that we got came from an issuer that actually performed very well in this awards. I don't want to give away. I'll circle back to it later.

But this is on stage or off stage.

Off stage?

Okay, Well, that kind of stuff I think can help because there's certain times that's not appropriate. But if this seems to be like something where it's appropriate, you know, the Financial Follies, that's that thing.

Nerd the nerd prompt financial.

You could be like the new Financial Follies. You know.

What you should consider doing is having some kind of a theatrical skit or even there's a lot of like Blackrock has a band, you could have the black Rock band play listen.

I don't know.

The idea is we.

Are we are way ahead of you, so I want to I just want to let you know that next year in twenty twenty five, like you heard it here. First, the ETF dot Com Awards are going to be crazy.

Do you think they were crazy this year?

Just wait, just wait, just wait till next.

Year's wait another three hundred days or.

Together in their seats.

Yeah, just mark your calendars.

Now you got some strategic moves like that game.

Bringing it back to.

The we didn't think there was enough open conflict at this one, so we're we're going to really try to play that out next year.

Good okay.

Bringing back to the twenty twenty four awards. Last three things. We're going to start with Lifetime Achievement Ward. Oh lucy who went that?

Jan Vanak won? And yeah, I mean he wasn't.

Bad for the other people who are nominated.

I mean everyone who was nominated, I mean was this? Is it just mean that next years scratched?

You just keep keep yourself, But.

Think about it. This is one of those categories where you know, everyone says that it's just an honor just to be nominated, and they don't really mean it because they really just want to win. But I actually think when it comes to the Lifetime Achievement Award category, it really is an honor to be nominated for for your colleagues and your peers to say you have done such an incredible job and so much work in this space.

It feels like the one award where maybe don't reveal who the nominees are, just acknowledge you the.

Winner is No I have to I think you're happy to be nominated.

Well, I don't know.

Do you know that I was nominated for this twice?

How did you feel?

I did not know that. I was not trying to like make you know, make you feel better.

Yeah, so I can give you first person account of how it feels. I was honestly just honored to be there. I felt too young. I was like, I'm not done yet. That said, I was like, that's kind of cool because for my age, I'm like, I'll take it. But the two people, I think Reggie Brown won instead of me one year and Matt Hogan won the other year.

It was when their name was called I felt a little.

Rejected, but just for a second, it wasn't bad. But here we've got Andrew Schlossberg, President of Invesco, Bob Pizzani, who does the CNBC ETF show, Hunter Horseley bit Y CEO, Joanna Gallegos from Bond Blocks, who has had a great career. She's been really around for a while. Rory Tobin of Global head of Spider, So, Jan Vanek is such a great guy. You know, it's a tough category, but somebody has to win. And how is his speech?

So it was actually really good. He gave us his speech virtually and one it was kind of just you know, obviously thanking the entire crowd for for nominating him and for his win, but also in a in a kind of a way, a call to action for investors and for also you know, the issuers in the space to really again to continue to innovate, to continue to provide really you know, value for their clients and for investors.

Okay, last two, we're going to do best drum roll.

Ye wants to make the drum roll.

Best New Think, best New etf Lucy, do you want to do? The owners?

And the winner it's a.

Little slow, was you need? Yeah, there you go?

And the winner was the Round Hill Magnificent seven ETF ticker m.

A gs what shocker.

Yeah, I know, kind of a no brainer.

Yeah, I mean that makes it brainer. I think that's a shocker, really round.

Hill, Yeah, I mean, I mean they're I mean they're the first, the first, yeah, best, Yeah, the first you get to track the mag seven stocks.

Yeah, they kind of coin they kinda off the Magnificent seven.

Here's why the cues and some of these big ETFs they're kind of Magnificent seven. Anyway, Like this basically took something that you're already loaded up on and said, let's just do that. And it's to me, it's proof you can really try anything, because it's not that it's just a slight step away from the cues, which I think are like forty percent Magnificent seven stocks.

I mean, anyway, God bless.

But Fang was yesterday and Magsie true today.

It's a sign of the times for sure. They also did chat, which is a ai E t F. They were nominated for two.

That's interesting.

Has it ever happened to the Oscars where someone's nominated for two at the same time.

I'm gonna go with yeah, but I don't know.

Yeah, will say pretty bad ass.

That's something that a couple of nominees appear more than once. You can appear in more than one category, and you are allowed to have as an issue more than one ETF in in everycent category.

One of the nominees, Joel, we had a whole episode on T Jewel T Jewel, which is the Innovator Equity Define Protection ETF. That's the one that says, we promise you'll never lose money and you'll get sixteen percent every two years. Remember, Yeah, And it was like that caused all kinds of controversy on Twitter.

Sounds sounds like too good to be trusto. When you hear it like that, it does you're to date.

They're only they're up less than one and a half percent.

Yeah, so they have it. Okay. Now the big reveal ETF of the year, Kristen, did you know what advance?

I knew some of them, okay, I knew some of them, Okay. And the winner is that was pacer US small cap cash Cows one hundred ETF ticker c a LF. They really should have nominated themselves, I think in the best ticker name. But yeah, CALF. So I should also mention pacer the Pacer folks also have the best freestyle wraps about about not only their their ETF, but also about their about their company.

Eric, this.

Is a worthy winner.

I agree with you.

Let me give you some facts on CALF. I think I voted for it. I can't remember.

But Calf, first of all, it's not a fact. I don't think in fact that shared like sharing something worthwhile.

Let me start again or keep it, I don't care. We're being human here, you know.

Okay?

Is this human enough? Okay? Okay?

Calf is like the little brother of cows. Cows is this cash flow ETF? To me, this is the arc of the fed raising rates cycle. So when fed raised rates, arc kind of went in the gutter and cows became the new darling indie kind of issuer that came out of nowhere, took in money hand over fist. So they're like, oh my god, we've got cows. Let's do this for small caps. We'll launch Calf, and Calf just took off. Calf is taken in money like I think it took

It's with this.

It's good within small caps. Small caps everybody knows has trailed the S and P by a lot, but it picked the right ones that it actually beat the S and P.

This is all.

This is really hard to do for an issue that isn't like a gargantuan size.

So that's why I love this winner. I will one because I just love the small cap story in general.

And they drop beats.

Yeah, and they drop mad sick beats, but I love the small cap story in general. I mean, I think in twenty twenty three, with the market performance obviously kind of like really like that bowl kind of getting out of the pen and starting to run, I think people really ignore it. I know, I know we're gonna I'm going to give you all cattle based references now for this, but honestly, I think people were kind of ignoring small caps.

Yeah, I agree.

The other one's mostly large cap jep Q, qqq m RSP, and BITQ would be bitcoin industry minors. That was a little bit of a test because as these nominees came out.

Bitcoin had exploded.

Yeah, but it didn't make its way in here because it's all twenty twenty four. So I was curious if if crypto would actually win this category just because bitcoin was hot. But it's probably best that didn't. I think next year you could see more of the bitcoin stuff.

Yeah, next year we'll have to do like a crypto category probably, Yeah, I think we will.

I think you just have to make a new one.

Yeah.

And I think it was cool too, because, I mean, as we mentioned Ai and mag seven was such sort of people think of the story of twenty twenty three. So to have this ETF when and really focus on you know, small cap and just have such a unique and effective strategy, I thought that was really cool.

All right. It's a question we often ask on the show at the end, Lucy Kristin, what's your favorite ETF ticker? Lucy, you can go first.

My favorite ETF ticker? Hmm, I think you got pure you know, fun. I do think I think hack is fun. I also like I like some of those spot bitcoin tickers. I think the van nek h O d L.

Is kind of fun.

I like the nods to the culture.

Take them, Kristin, Oh, mine sounds so boring. Now, Jets.

It's fine favorite, It's well, I well, what I am general Jets fan.

I like the football team. No, Okay, I'm a giant. I'm a giant school. I do have friends that play on the Jets, so I kind of am like, yeah, I support whenever I see them playing, But I like Jets. I love the travel industry. Yeah, I love the travel industry in general. I love in the airlines, the airliners, and it's just such an easy ticker name to remember and Jets love that.

I think Jets one two or three years ago. It had to it had a great year around COVID.

Yeah. Okay, Lucy Kristin, thanks so much for joining us on Trillion's.

Thanks for having.

Us, Thanks for listening to Trillions until next time. You can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you'd like to listen. We'd love to hear from you. We're on Twitter. I'm at Joel Webber Show. He's at Eric Balchunas. This episode of Trillions was produced by Magnus Hendrickson. Bye